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So it is December 2nd as I write this meaning November is over and with it National Novel Writing Month for another year. I reached 70,000 words so I did meet the word goal. Actually I made the word goal on November 21st but kept going because there was a lot more narrative to plow through and I couldn't let my average word count per day drop, now could I?
This is not to say that there weren't problems. A completely new site was implemented for this year's race and it had a lot of technical issues. There were problems with badges not updating, word counts being desynced which gave incorrect words remaining and total word counts among some other issues, and the word count validator couldn't be implemented into the new site which sparked a sometimes-nasty thread on the issue and other threads where people got angry and flounced off in a huff. There are still other persistent issues such as people getting stuck in log-out loops. Then again no website ever seems to work 100% on every possible system configuration so the fact that there are continuing problems should surprise no one.
I find that last one (the validator) to be not a problem at all and just shake my head at those who got all worked about not getting to copy-paste text into a box so that it could be counted. First of all since the routine by which words are defined (and thus counted) differs between software this meant you could reach 50k by local count, plug it into the validator, and then find it counts you at a lower number. I've never had a win denied because of that (I always wrote several hundred words beyond 50k just as "padding" to make sure I avoided that) but I totally understand someone getting rather cross on day thirty because of it. Then there's of course the problem that if you can't get the validator to work you might be in for a lot of jumping hoops with no guarantee of success. If you wrote 50k words in November you've reached the goal. Clicking send on a validator doesn't change that.
Then there are those who ardently argued that the validator prevents cheating.
Prevents cheating? HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!!
Oh sorry, I just can't help but laugh at how naive that is. All the validator has ever done is count words. That's it. You could copy-paste my laugh track in there over and over to get to 50k and it would never know the difference. I think some people saw the label "validator" and assumed far, FAR too much about it. As for those who flounced off I have precisely zero sympathy. I understand they're frustrated... and still zero sympathy.
This is not to say that there weren't problems. A completely new site was implemented for this year's race and it had a lot of technical issues. There were problems with badges not updating, word counts being desynced which gave incorrect words remaining and total word counts among some other issues, and the word count validator couldn't be implemented into the new site which sparked a sometimes-nasty thread on the issue and other threads where people got angry and flounced off in a huff. There are still other persistent issues such as people getting stuck in log-out loops. Then again no website ever seems to work 100% on every possible system configuration so the fact that there are continuing problems should surprise no one.
I find that last one (the validator) to be not a problem at all and just shake my head at those who got all worked about not getting to copy-paste text into a box so that it could be counted. First of all since the routine by which words are defined (and thus counted) differs between software this meant you could reach 50k by local count, plug it into the validator, and then find it counts you at a lower number. I've never had a win denied because of that (I always wrote several hundred words beyond 50k just as "padding" to make sure I avoided that) but I totally understand someone getting rather cross on day thirty because of it. Then there's of course the problem that if you can't get the validator to work you might be in for a lot of jumping hoops with no guarantee of success. If you wrote 50k words in November you've reached the goal. Clicking send on a validator doesn't change that.
Then there are those who ardently argued that the validator prevents cheating.
Prevents cheating? HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!!
Oh sorry, I just can't help but laugh at how naive that is. All the validator has ever done is count words. That's it. You could copy-paste my laugh track in there over and over to get to 50k and it would never know the difference. I think some people saw the label "validator" and assumed far, FAR too much about it. As for those who flounced off I have precisely zero sympathy. I understand they're frustrated... and still zero sympathy.
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